The present invention generally relates to an apparatus and method to aid coaching of a team sport. More specifically, the present invention relates to a hand carried coach""s play book used by a team coach for organizing and strategizing team play.
The task of coaching team play, particularly youth soccer, can be filled with confusion. The attendance of the players to any one game can be difficult to predict and when the players are not playing on the field they tend to wander off to talk to parents or friends that are spectators of the game. This can make it difficult to strategize plays in advance or to keep track of who is in a game, who is out of a game, or who has already played in a game and who needs to play.
While there currently exist tools to aid individuals in coaching soccer, they are typically provided on individual papers or papers bound in a notebook or binder. These, however, are generally prepared in advance and therefore difficult to alter. Even if plays or position plans are developed upon arriving at the field on game day, any change in players available during the game can be difficult to adjust for without having to produce a whole new plan or cut and paste portions of the original plan with portions of a new plan.
It is also common for coaches of such teams playing recreational games not to use any organizational or strategy tools at all. As such, the coach may be unable to keep track of which players have played in which positions on the field and information may be lost in an attempt to communicate play strategies to the team. Furthermore, the coach would likely be required to spend more time explaining to each player what position they should be playing in, where that position is located on the field and strategy about how to play that particular position.
Another issue faced by many coaches of youth soccer is how to educate the young players about the game, the positions, and strategies for playing the game. Generally, to keep the interest of the younger players, such information should be provided in a simple, easy to comprehend manner.
The present invention is an apparatus and method to assist a coach in organizing and strategizing team play for a sport. The preferred apparatus comprises a coach""s play book and organizer which includes a plurality of preferred contents which can be carried by a coach for ready access to the coach and the players. The organizer preferably includes a traditional ringed binder. The preferred contents for the organizer comprise a strategy page, a storage page, a position page, and a position indicator. Each of the preferred pages include a first surface and a second surface disposed parallel and opposite to each other, similar to the configuration of a traditional sheet of paper.
The pages for the organizer are preferably fixed in the organizer, similar to sheets of paper fixed in a traditional binder, such that the first surface of each page faces a corresponding direction and the second surface of each page faces a corresponding opposite direction.
The preferred strategy page includes a strategy board disposed on the first surface of the page and a roster board on the second surface. The strategy board preferably includes a schematic plan view of a field on which the team sport is played and the roster board preferably includes an open space for notes positioned below a player matrix. The second surface of the storage page comprises a storage space. The first surface of the position page includes a schematic of a plan view of a playing field on which the team sport is played. The storage page and the position page are both preferably comprised of a material attracted by a magnetic force. The position indicator or player pieces are preferably magnetic and therefore easily fixable to and movable about the storage page and the position page and arranged and configured to receive a label that may contain a variety of information.